Category Archives: Lecture

Sandwich in History today at the Dan Stowers Building

Posted on by

Dan Stowers Office Building_tour_tnThe monthly architectural history program “Sandwiching in History” visits the Dan Stowers Office Building, located at 1516 West Third Street.

Architect Dan F. Stowers, Sr., designed this Mid-century Modern building in 1960 to house his firm. Somewhat unassuming from Third Street, the Stowers Building was oriented to take advantage of the view to the north and provide natural light for the drafting room.

Although the majority of the building’s walls are solid masonry, the northern elevation is composed of a glass curtain wall. This provided the perfect amount of indirect light for the drafting room. Panels of screen block on the building’s eastern side shield an exterior staircase and create an interesting detail.

Sandwiching in History is a program of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

 

Legacies & Lunch – Chris Engholm discusses White River Memoirs today at noon

Posted on by

white_riverThe White River and its tributaries represent the most ecologically intact watershed in the continental United States. Over a million people inhabit it, living in 234 communities in 60 counties. For the past two years, Chris Engholm has traveled the White River in a cedar strip canoe, listening to people connected to it and collecting the artwork of 25 fine artists who maintain a special relationship with the river.

This artwork is showcased in a gallery exhibition, White River Memoirs, on view in Butler Center Galleries, 401 Pres. Clinton Ave., now through July 25, 2015. At Legacies & Lunch, Engholm will discuss his experiences and present visual documentation of his findings.

The program takes place today at noon at the Darragh Center on the Main Library campus.

Legacies and Lunch is sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided.

Tonight at Clinton School – Discussion of Thurgood Marshall and 1949 Groveland Boys Case

Posted on by

UACS DevilBefore he was on the Supreme Court, before he supported the Little Rock Nine, before Brown v. Board of Education, Thurgood Marshall was a longtime crusader not just for civil rights, but for human rights.  T

Tonight at the Clinton School, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gilbert King, Justice Marshall’s son, Thurgood Marshall, Jr., will discuss the 1949 Groveland Boys case.

Gilbert King is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America. The book, about four black men falsely accused of raping Norma Lee Padgett, a 17-year-old white woman in Groveland, Fla. in 1949, unearthed a largely forgotten chapter in the long history of racial injustice in the United States, and explored, in painstaking details, the tactics used by Thurgood Marshall, the future Supreme Court Justice, to chip away at the foundations of Jim Crow law.

The program will begin at 6pm at the Clinton School of Public Service.  A book signing will follow.

Bridge to the Future Festival – today at Clinton Presidential Center and Clinton Presidential Park

Posted on by
emcpc042815bThe Clinton Presidential Center will host the Bridge to the Future Festival on Saturday, May 2, 2015, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event, which will be held in the Clinton Presidential Park, will bring together organizations that support the missions of early learning, health and nutrition to provide fun, interactive educational activities for children and parents.
Bridge to the Future Festival
Saturday, May 2, 2015
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Clinton Presidential Park
The festival will kick off with a walk from the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge by HIPPY Arkansas participants. From there, visitors can venture into several learning zone “Villages” with the following themes: Education, Health and Fitness, Nutrition and Gardening, Safety, Environmental Health, and Activity. Each will feature interactive educational activities, as well as healthy snacks.
Each child will receive a passport, which will be stamped when they visit and participate in the Village activities for the chance to have their name entered in the grand prize drawing at the end of the festival.

Event Partners:
Arkansas Better Beginnings, Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Arkansas Department of Health, Arkansas GardenCorps, Arkansas Imagination Library, Arkansas Minority Health Commission, Central Arkansas Library System, Clinton Health Matters Initiative, Delta Dental, HIPPY Arkansas, Knowledge Tree, Master Gardeners, Reading is Fundamental, Renaissance Learning, Too Small to Fail

Final day for 2015 Arkansas Literary Festival

Posted on by

2015 ALF 2The final day of the Arkansas Literary Festival kicks off with David Rosenfelt discussing Hounded at the Clinton School at noon.  That will be followed by Arkansas Puzzle Day from 1pm to 4pm at the Clinton School.

The used book sale will continue at both the Main Library and River Market Books & Gifts.

Karen Joy Fowler and Megan Mayhew Bergman will be on a panel at 1:30pm at the Ron Robinson Theatre.

At 3pm, Charles Morgan will lead the final session of the 2015 ALF when he discusses his book Matters of Life and Data at the Ron Robinson Theatre.

Charles Morgan discussing MATTERS OF LIFE AND DATA to close the 2015 Arkansas Literary Festival

Posted on by

CDM-Book-CoverThe 2015 Arkansas Literary Festival comes to a close on Sunday, April 26 with a conversation between Charles Morgan and Kelley Bass.  These two longtime friends will be discussing Morgan’s book, Matters of Life and Data at 3pm in the Ron Robinson Theater.

Here is how Morgan describes the book:

“I didn’t set out to become a collector of your and your neighbors’ information. When I was growing up, nobody but egghead scientists talked about ‘data.’ It was the mechanical age, and I was a gadget geek, taking apart my cousin’s toys and trying to put them back together again. I was especially crazy about cars and engines, and had it not been for a fateful encounter during college recruiting season, I might’ve lived my life as a race car mechanic instead of learning about computers at IBM. As it turned out, pursuing Big Data allowed me the resources to become a professional race car driver on the side, competing against the likes of Paul Newman, who makes appearances in these pages as well.

“Such are the wonders of this journey we’re all on. Mine has taken me from the frontier of western Arkansas, where my ancestors owned a hardware store selling iron tools to westbound travelers, to the frontier of the digital age, where room-size computers have become eclipsed by the power of smart phones. And in a sense, the story you’re about to read isn’t so different from those of the colorful adventurers who stocked up their wagons at my family’s hardware emporium and headed west to make their fortunes. Data mining is the new gold rush, and we were there at first strike, dragging with us all our human frailties and foibles. In this book’s cast of characters you’ll find ambition, arrogance, jealousy, pride, fear, recklessness, anger, lust, viciousness, greed, revenge, betrayal, and then some.”

“It is a messy story. In the big picture, this could be called a narrative of America since World War II. But in the micro telling, think of it this way: The man who opened your lives to Big Data finally bares his own.”

A full slate for the third day of the 2015 Arkansas Literary Festival

Posted on by

2015 ALF 1Many activities today with the Arkansas Literary Festival!

At 10am –

  • Karen Joy Fowler, Janis F. Kearney and Jamaica Kincaid on a panel – Acts of Empowerment at the Darragh Center.
  • Alison Hedge Coke and Casandra Lopez on a panel – Indigenous Grace in the Main Library
  • Stephen Roth, Jay Ruud and John Vanderslice on a panel – Island of Fatal Pride in the Arkansas Studies Institute
  • Karen Akins, John Horner Jacobs and Ann Leckie on a panel – Science Fiction & Fantasy in the Arkansas Studies Institute
  • Michael Barrier will discuss his book Funnybooks on the 3rd floor of River Market Books & Gifts
  • Joe Barry Carroll will give a workshop at Historic Arkansas Museum
  • Arree Chung will discuss Ninja! At the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library and Learning Center.

At 11:30am –

  • Scott Simpson will lead a Dinosaur Odyssey in the Ron Robinson Theater
  • Megan Abbott & Ben Percy on a panel – Thrill Me in the Darragh Center.
  • Morgan Murphy & Desha Peacock on a panel – Social Savvy in the Arkansas Studies Institute
  • Lisa Howorth and James Korne Gay on a panel – Mississippi Two by Two on the 3rd floor of River Market Books & Gifts
  • John A. Beineke & James Presley on a panel – Notorious Crimes at Historic Arkansas Museum
  • Brian Turner discusses Memories of a Soldier at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History
  • Tiphanie Yanique and Sefi Atta on a panel – Vital Fusion at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center
  • Michele Raffin discusses The Birds of Pandemonium at the Witt Stephens Jr. Arkansas Nature Center

At 1pm –

  • Issa Rae will discuss The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl at the Ron Robinson Theater
  • Michael Kardos & M.O. Walsk on a panel – The Unputdownables at the Darragh Center.
  • Mary Miller & Timothy S. Lane on a panel – Triumph of Youth in the Main Library
  • Jesse J. Hargrove and Janis F. Kearney on a panel – Celia and T.J. in the Arkansas Studies Institute
  • Cheryl & Griffith Day on a panel – Baking Days in the Arkansas Studies Institute
  • Jonathan Darman discusses Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan on the 3rd floor of River Market Books & Gifts
  • Joe Barry Carroll discusses Growing Up…in Words and Images at Historic Arkansas Museum
  • Jeff Allen and Preston Lauterbach on a panel – Beginning in 1866 at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center
  • Amanda Petrusich and Kent Russell on a panel at the Witt Stephens Jr. Arkansas Nature Center
  • Spencer Reese discusses The Road to Emmaus at Christ Episcopal Church

At 2:30 pm –

  • Rick Bragg discusses Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story at the Ron Robinson Theater
  • Quan Barry and Brock Clarke on a panel – Luminosity at the Darragh Center.
  • Richard Lange, Thomas Pierce & Antonio Ruiz-Camacho on a panel – Short Stories in the Main Library
  • Maxine Payne discusses Making Pictures in the Arkansas Studies Institute
  • Morgan Murphy discusses Off the Eaten Path: On the Road Again in the Arkansas Studies Institute
  • Meili Cady discusses Smoke on the 3rd floor of River Market Books & Gifts
  • Frank Thurmond discusses Ring of Five at Historic Arkansas Museum
  • Ted Rall discusses Traveling to Afghanistan at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History
  • Jamaica Kincaid discusses See Now Then at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center
  • Scott Sampson discusses How to Raise a Wild Child at the Witt Stephens Jr. Arkansas Nature Center

At 4 pm –

  • Marck Beggs, Nickole Brown, Hope Coulter, Jessica Jacobs, Sand Longhorn and Jo McDougall headline a poetry panel at the Ron Robinson Theater
  • Kevin Brockmeier and Tania James on a panel at the Darragh Center.
  • Desha Peacock leads a workshop on creating your style in the Main Library
  • J. Hartley discusses Macbeth: A Novel in the Arkansas Studies Institute
  • Sam Quinones and Marilyn Wedge on a panel in the Arkansas Studies Institute
  • Seph Lawless discusses Black Friday on the 3rd floor of River Market Books & Gifts
  • Laura Parker Castoro and Adrienne Thompson on a panel at Historic Arkansas Museum
  • Molly Guptill Manning discusses When Books Went to War at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History
  • Guy Lancaster and Andrew Maraniss on a panel – History and Sport at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center
  • Michael Largo discusses The Big, Bad Book of Botany at the Witt Stephens Jr. Arkansas Nature Center

Evening activities include:

  • Fed, White & Blue at 5pm at the Oxford American annex (1300 Main) featuring author and TV personality Simon Jajumdar
  • Joshua Wolf Shank discussing Powers of Two at the Clinton School at 6pm
  • Pub or Perish, moderated by Bryan Borland at Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack at 7pm
  • Speak Now at Mosaic Templars Cultural Center at 7pm
  • John Waters discussing Carsick at the Ron Robinson Theatre at 8pm